Pubdate: Wed, 23 Mar 2016
Source: Maple Ridge News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Maple Ridge News
Contact:  http://www.mapleridgenews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1328
Author: Phil Melnychuk

MAPLE RIDGE FIREFIGHTERS TO HAVE NARCAN KITS

By the end of next month, Maple Ridge firefighters will be rolling
through town with a new tool to help save lives.

The fire department's training personnel have now received instruction
from B.C. Emergency Health Services on how to the administer Narcan,
or naloxone, so they can pass on their training to the rest of 56
full-time and 60 paid-on-call firefighters.

Narcan kits allow first responders, or even family and friends, to
inject someone who's suffering a fentanyl or other opioid overdose.

"It's a scourge right now," said Maple Ridge fire chief Dane
Spence.

Last year, Maple Ridge had 23 drug fatalities last year, twice as many
as the larger communities of Langley or Coquitlam, which had 11 each.

Overdoses from fentanyl are decimating drug users in B.C. and across
Canada. The artificial opioid is 50 times more powerful than heroine.

According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, opioids are
depressant drugs, which means that they slow down the part of the
brain that controls breathing, even leading to point where breathing
stops.

Opioids can also produce euphoria, making them prone to
abuse.

Naloxone can counteract those effects.

The kits will become part of the medical equipment kit that
firefighters carry.

"It's one more tool in the tool box," said Spence. "It does not
replace the basics of first aid."

With fire trucks now equipped, there's more of a chance that lives
could be saved if firefighters are first on the scene of a drug overdose.

They will still have to get authorization by an emergency physician on
call that advise first responders.

Pitt Meadows fire chief Don Jolley said most of the 36 paid-on call
firefighters in his department will have received the training within
a week. Each training session takes about two hours.

By that time, the city's eight trucks will be responding to
emergencies with those kits, for which the city has to pay a small
fee.

Jolley said it's usually a 50-50 split between the fire department and
paramedics on who arrives first at an emergency scene.

Last year, Alouette Addiction Services in Maple Ridge gave out Narcan
kits to drug users.

To get the kits, people had to take an hour of training.

Alouette Addiction said many drugs, even marijuana, are being mixed
with fentanyl, and that minute amounts of it, even absorbed through
the skin, can be fatal.
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MAP posted-by: Matt